I am going to a school band concert tonight. Or at least I think I'm going to a school band concert tonight. You see it was supposed to be held on Monday and it was postponed because of the snow. Then it was supposed to be held on Tuesday but it was postponed because of the snow. And because it is now being held tonight when there are also swim meets, music recitals, and holiday parties, it may not get quite the attention that it should.

Which is why I want to make sure that everyone knows about the new IBM Power 780 TPC-H Business Intelligence benchmark result announced yesterday afternoon. Between the IBM Watson Jeopardy! game and Christmas shopping it's no wonder that an important result like this one could get buried. Here's what you need to know:

IBM now is #1 in the nonclustered TPC-H 1TB benchmark.(1)

TPC-H results are few and far between. So this is an important one to note, especially because it's an outstanding POWER7 proof point.

The IBM Power 780 result is over 2.3 times the performance per core of the HP Integrity Superdome 2 with Oracle result and over 2.7 times the performance per core of the Oracle Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 with Oracle result. And the price performance of the IBM result is considerably less expensive.(1)

Sometimes you just have to dig through the snow mounds to find the newspaper.

Sometimes we just get too much of a good thing. Like the 6 hours of raking leaves this weekend. The complaints that airport screening has become too intrusive. Or the pictures of Prince William's engagement.

And that's how I've felt lately about Cloud. How many more presentations and articles do we really need to see on this important topic?

So what an amazing thing to be able to recommend a very cool new cloud presentation. Cool because it goes beyond the usual cloud definitions. The presentation from my colleague Pam Isom, Executive Enterprise Architect at IBM Global Business Services, was given at The Open Group's conference in Amsterdam last month. Pam provides:

Real-life business and technology outcomes of using Cloud in the enterprise

The significance of the Business Architect and Cloud

Practical guidance

Feel free to contact Pam for more information at pisom@us.ibm.com. And let us know if you find the presentation useful. Or have any more examples of too much of a good thing.

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The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

Joe Jakubowski, Virtualization Performance Lead Engineer, and Nancy Reaves, Offering and Alliance Manager, recently gave an excellent talk on understanding virtualization benchmarks. Here is what you need to know:

As we know, benchmarks are only one of many ways to evaluate systems. Performance is one component - don't forget to consider reliability features, memory capacity/scalability, I/O, and manageability when selecting a virtualization solution.

Virtualization performance (and performance in general) is not just a function of transaction throughput. It is also important to analyze response time.

When comparing virtualization benchmark results, it is important to compare like builds and like configurations to make an apples-to-apples comparison. Often a gap in results can be attributed to the hypervisor build. The Build Number can be found in the benchmark disclosure report.

SPECvirt_sc2010 is the industry-standard single-host virtualization benchmark for all systems, including x86 servers. This benchmark has many enhancements including:

TPC-C is a benchmark that some of us love to hate. It's too old, it's too big, it takes so many resources. But in the end, TPC-C is great to have as a proof point, with all of the detailed performance data behind it.

IBM published an outstanding TPC-C result today on an x3850 X5 system. The IBM result was 27% greater than HP's top DL580 result and the highest ever x86-64 score (1). IBM's eX5 result used MAX5, an industry-first technology that decouples memory from the processor allowing for the unique capability to expand memory independently of the processor to increase the productivity of a single system.

The TPC-C benchmark simulates an order-entry environment of a wholesale supplier -- entering and delivering orders, recording payments, checking the status of orders, and monitoring the level of stock at the warehouses. What's so valuable here is that TPC-C represents truly any industry that must manage, sell, or distribute a product or service.

So whatever business we are in, we can take any of our industry applications to the MAX.

On Saturday, I spent two hours raking leaves. It was a perfect afternoon. Sunny, warm, no wind. It almost made you glad to be raking leaves on a Saturday afternoon.

What a sense of accomplishment as you get that leaf pile to rise higher and higher. Sometimes you think there's just no way even one more leaf can be placed on top. And then you heave a smaller pile onto the large pile and somehow it actually stays.

IBM's leaf pile has also been reaching new heights in the just released TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers.

IBM once again had the most installed aggregate throughput with over 12,093 out of 43,654 Teraflops. IBM has had the lead for 23 lists in a row.

IBM had the most systems with 200. HP had 160, Cray had 29, SGI had 22. Oh, and Oracle? Oracle had 11.

IBM had the most energy-efficient system as well as the most energy-efficient x86-only cluster. And IBM clearly dominated the top 25 most energy efficient systems overall.

And for even more top news, IBM today just published another #1 SAP SD 2-tier benchmark result, the highest result ever, on the IBM Power 795 (1). Read more here.

On Saturday afternoon, I sat down and lovingly looked over my impressive 3 foot piles of leaves. What an awesome sight. What an amazing accomplishment and so wonderful that with this job you can actually see the results, firsthand and right away. Then something caught my eye. My neighbor has a gorgeous maple that towers above every other tree on the block. The leaves were flaming before me, the color of a sunset on Fire Island. But then it hit me. They were still very much on the tree. And I realized that we've only just begun.

Sources: http://www.sap.com/benchmark, http://www.top500.org. Results current as of 11/15/10.

SAP, mySAP and other SAP product and service names mentioned herein as well as their respective
logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all
over the world.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

Stunning is a word we usually reserve for a new swimsuit. A diamond ring. Or Grace Kelly.

Not a word we would apply to a grey box.

Oracle's newest advertisement for its "stunning" Exadata system this morning makes extraordinary claims of query performance from "one customer." Who is that customer? Oh, OK Larry, so you can't tell us. Then what industry is it? What type of application? What data? The ad screams "hardware and software." But exactly what hardware and software was run and compared to what? Remember that devil in the details.

If you're going to make claims on a system that you haven't even put forward in an industry standard benchmark, then you surely better be thorough about it.

And you might be careful about using the word stunning in this context. Unless of course you mean it to have its other meaning - capable of causing, or liable to cause bewilderment or a loss of consciousness.

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The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

In a study I read about this week, it appears that working actually provides an important component of the environment that improves cognitive functioning. In other words, the earlier you retire, the more quickly your memory may decline.

The good news about this finding is that the more we analyze benchmark results, the better it is for the health of our brain.

Oracle published a TPC-H 3TB benchmark last week on the Sun M9000 using Oracle 11g. What amazed me was that Oracle would actually compare it to an IBM result when the IBM Power Systems result was clearly 1.5 times better performance per core than the Oracle result.(1) And that doesn't even take into account the fact that:

The Oracle result had an availability date in 2Q11 while the IBM result was from 2009.

The Oracle result was on a brand new system while the IBM result was on a POWER6 system, not even on a POWER7 system.

The Oracle result used Oracle Database 11g Release 2.0.2, not even available yet. The IBM result was a proof point using Sybase.

A few weeks ago I went apple picking. There is just something so satisfying, twisting the apple off the tree and placing it lovingly into your bag. Crunching on one or two as you pick. And watching the dog eat the rotten cores lying on the ground.

Sometimes there are too many wonderful choices. Do I pick Cortlands for the pie, Jonathans because they can be cute and juicy, or Golden Delicious because they're not red? Or maybe I even go over to the vines adjacent to the orchard and pick grapes for jam.

And that's how I felt today looking at all the exciting announcements:

Today IBM announced new Storage Systems that are designed to increase efficiency and are optimized for workloads such as Transaction Processing and Analytics. The extensive list of storage innovations announced today builds on technology such as IBM System Storage Easy Tier software, which was invented by IBM Research and can improve performance significantly by automatically moving active data to SSDs.(1)

Today the IBM Power 795 achieved the highest result ever published on the two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) standard application benchmark. The 128-core Power 795 handled 79 percent more users than a 256-core Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (Oracle's largest system) and over 1.8 times more users per core than a brand new HP DL980.(2)

Today IBM also announced everything from a new version of PowerVM with industrial-strength virtualization to IBM Smart Analytics System enhancements to a new Power 740 8-core server.

That afternoon we picked 32 pounds of apples and made two batches of apple rings, an apple pie, apple slices -- and squid in red wine sauce without apples. I was exhausted -- but I'm hoping to make it to the orchards this weekend because I surely can't miss the Melrose.

Sources: www.sap.com/benchmark, http://www.storageperformance.org. Results current as of 10/7/10.

SAP, mySAP and other SAP product and service names mentioned herein as well as their respective
logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all
over the world.

When I hear "T3" I can't help but think of a wonderful program I've been a part of, where the top notch experts in some area are taught about something new and then go out and teach others. Train the Trainer, it's called.

T3 is also the name for Oracle's new SPARC T3 processor and systems. If only the new T3 benchmarks were so top notch. Let's take a closer look:

Oracle touts a T3 SPECjEnterprise2010 result. A SPECjEnterprise2010 IBM POWER7 result with WebSphere and DB2 was actually 51% greater than the performance per core of this new Oracle SPARC T3 server result.(1) And IBM is #1 in this benchmark with an X5 system, again using DB2 and WebSphere.(2)

Oracle touts a T3 SPECjvm2008 result as best performance in the industry. Too bad there are only old Sun and Apple results to compare with. Why is this benchmark so unpopular?

Most of the new Oracle SPARC T3 benchmarks announced were actually Oracle's own applications -- essentially internal tests. Even something called an "in-house workload" was used.

Oracle highlights an increase over performance of their previous generation systems. And all I want to say is, I sure hope so. Or why even bother?

I just finished an extraordinary historical novel about the discovery of plesiosaurs along the English coast in the 1800s. What was so amazing was how just finding these skeletons in the sand changed everything about the way people viewed the world.

I was thinking about this as I thought about all the recent changes in the IT industry. We have companies buying up companies, sometimes so awkwardly that their whole mission changes.

And sometimes it's just to complement what is there. As with the recent IBM agreements with Netezza and BLADE. At the same time, IBM invests a huge amount in our own innovation. All you have to do is look at the amount of investment IBM has in Research and Development areas and how many real breakthroughs and patents are produced at IBM each year. I think that a healthy combination of both acquisition and research is needed for an organization to thrive.

On the other hand, HP completed the offer for and merger with 3PAR -- while in the same morning they are claiming a "breakthrough" because six of their internal data centers are now “Cisco Free.” I guess sometimes collaboration only goes so far and breakthroughs are not necessarily groundbreaking.

So let's get this straight. At this moment in time, Cisco still likes everyone. HP used to like Cisco and Oracle and now they don't. Oracle used to like IBM and HP and now they don't like them or anyone.

The implications of how the changing business of the IT world will impact systems performance is mind-boggling. About a decade ago I read the bestseller "Who Moved My Cheese?" The book came with a card that I look at almost every day. "Change Happens . . . Be Ready to Quickly Change Again and Again. They Keep Moving the Cheese."

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The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

One of the papers that has haunted me ever since I first read it in college is called "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" (George A. Miller, 1956). It begins “My problem is that I have been persecuted by an integer” and proves that the number of objects an average human can hold in working memory is 7 ± 2.

This week, Oracle seems to be violating this very limit by overloading us with information; they published 30 or so press releases alone yesterday. With all this information overload, how can you make sure not to get distracted and confused? Here are the key performance points that you need to take away from all the recent OpenWorld benchmark results:

Watch the benchmarks used. Oracle compares SAP SD Parallel benchmark data with SAP SD standard data. Note that these benchmarks are different benchmarks and have different data distributions.

Watch all the components of the benchmark. The SPECjAppServer2004 benchmark results only focus on the application server and not the key database server. Remember that when you are doing any compares. Oh, and these results are not even run on Oracle/Sun systems.

Watch the configurations used in the benchmarks carefully. A SPECjEnterprise2010 IBM POWER7 result with WebSphere and DB2 was actually over 1.5 times the performance per core of a new Oracle SPARC T3 server result.(1)

Watch for "internal benchmarks." Most of the new Oracle SPARC T3 benchmarks announced were actually Oracle's own applications - Siebel, Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, even something called an "in-house workload."

Watch for no benchmarks. The Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud and Exadata X2-8 systems announced have many claims but no real industry standard performance data that we can compare to. Just like the old Exadata V2, where we've been waiting over a year for any benchmark.

Note that I used 7-2=5 points above. Because who even remembers a 7 digit phone number these days.

SAP, mySAP and other SAP product and service names mentioned herein as well as their respective
logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all
over the world.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

The flurry of news from Oracle OpenWorld this week reminds me of the invasion of the Lake Erie midges. These insects swarm into action when the lake temperature is in the 60 degree range, in the spring when the lake is warming and then again in the fall when the lake is cooling. And for some reason this year it's been really bad.

This past week, there are clouds of them near the doors. They come in on the dog's tail. Don't open the windows. And whatever you do, don't turn on the lights.

In performance news today, Oracle highlighted a SPECjAppServer2004 result on an HP system using Oracle middleware. Hard to understand why it's news. IBM published a larger result using the same number of database server cores. On a POWER5+ system which was available 4 years ago.(1)

Also today, Oracle announced a new system, the Exalogic Elastic Cloud, a middleware machine with "extreme" Java performance. Note that performance claims were based on "internal testing" with "improvements" seen. The big question is -- improvements over what? Just like with sister system Exadata, no real benchmarks, no real way to compare.

Those midges are such a pain. But just remember. The midges live for about a week. They don't bite. And they are often eaten by small birds or end up squashed on car windshields.

Remember back when talking about quality time was in vogue? It's not just the quantity of time you spend with kids, grandparents, pets, and others -- but the quality of the time that matters as well.

Cisco's newest press release on data center announcements makes a claim about "nine performance world records, including two benchmarks with the new UCS B230 M1 Blade Server." Here's what you need to know:

Nine is fine. But if you want to talk quantity, IBM leads in over 100 key benchmarks concurrently. And there is even a web page with all the details.

If you want to talk quality, the IBM leadership spans across a wide portfolio of industry standard and ISV benchmarks. Not just a small handful of selected applications.

It's also very exciting that the announcement referenced two new B230 benchmarks -- I wish I knew which ones. Without a footnote or web page it's really hard to second guess which quality benchmarks these are. I know that I didn't get any notes about a TPC or SAP result. I searched the SPEC site and didn't see the results there. So what are these mystery benchmarks anyway and why were they not announced with fanfare?

On Saturday I took my Black Lab to an annual event here known as the Doggy Dip. My dog made about a thousand friends, got dunked in the community pool twice, and even found a doggy treat on the ground. We only stayed thirty minutes. Now that was quality time.

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TPC-C ,TPC-H, and TPC-E are trademarks of the Transaction Performance Processing Council (TPPC).

SAP, mySAP and other SAP product and service names mentioned herein as well as their respective
logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all
over the world.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

Product placement in TV shows and movies can be fun. And one of the more interesting product placements has to be Cisco's video conferencing on the television show 24. Who needs boring business meetings when you can save the world?

Lately I've noticed that Cisco has also been placing product in other places -- notably on benchmark consortia websites. In fact, there's been an increase in chatter with the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) in this area over the past few months. So let's take a look at how some of Cisco's recent industry standard benchmark results fare.

SAP, mySAP and other SAP product and service names mentioned herein as well as their respective
logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all
over the world.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

And that's exactly what can happen when you have a "benchmark" that is not audited.

Oracle's newest press release claims a "benchmark" for the Exadata V2 system. Yes, we've all been waiting for just this day. But look closely around those eggs.

There are no audited results, no website where results are published. Note that Oracle is very vague when they make comparison statements - they say it's "outstanding," but who can tell. They compare to previous benchmarks, but who can tell. There are no footnotes. They are running their own application on their own hardware and then telling us how they did.

We are still waiting for a real benchmark.

Don't let the fox guard the hen house.

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The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.